No Holds Barred
(1989)
My newest series: wrestler movies.
That is, movies with wrestlers in them. And not just little
cameo appearances like The Big Show in Jingle
all the Way. I’m talking about films with wrestlers in lead roles.
It sort of makes sense doesn’t it? Wrestlers are already
actors in a way, playing a character on TV every week. Just generally, they
aren’t very good actors.
As I review the films, I may use insider wrestler terms to
describe events. Mainly because I think it would be more fun to view the films
in a wrestling context. You may already know these but it never does well to
assume so likely phrases that will pop up:
‘face’ or ‘babyface’ – the good guy
‘heel’ – the bad
guy
‘-turn’ – when a
good guy becomes a bad guy or visa versa
‘kayfabe’ – the wrestler’s
code. They do not admit to being the f word.
‘marks’ – the fans
‘smarks’ – the fans
who think they have insider knowledge
‘sell/selling’ – a wrestler putting over how much pain a
move is hurting them. Variations are ‘no
sell’ (not reacting at all) and ‘over-sell’
(going way over the top with it)
‘heat’ – cheers
for a good guy or boos for a bad guy means they are over with the crowd. The
worst thing for a wrestler is no reaction as it means the fans don’t care about
them
Where better to start a review of wrestler movies than with
perhaps the most well-known wrestler of all, Terry Bollea aka Hulk Hogan.
It’s 1988, wrestling has become a big business and no one is
bigger than Hulk Hogan. Hulkamania is running wild. Some bright spark at the
WWF has the idea, ‘Let’s cash in on this and make a movie.’ Released in July
1989, is No Holds Barred, produced by
WWF films. This was not Hogan’s first foray into the world of movies, he had
already made a memorable appearance in Rocky
III as ‘Thunderlips’ and had made appearances on TV in The Love Boat and The A-Team.
The script itself was written by Hogan himself with WWF owner Vince McMahon Jr.
They hated the original script so much they locked themselves in a hotel room
for 72 hours to re-write it. And that was
all.
Hogan plays a character called Rip, a professional wrestler
whom to all intents and purposes is just Hulk Hogan. He is the World Wrestling
Federation champion after all. Weird that they would keep the WWF name but
change the character to Rip. He is the most watched thing on TV.
This annoys the head of a rival network Brell (played by
Kurt Fuller, best known for his appearances in Wayne’s World and Ghostbusters
II). He wants Rip on his network and invites him to his office to sign a
contract with him. Pretty sure his contract is with WWF not the TV network,
strange that the WWF doesn’t know how their own industry works. Rip says he’s
not interested. I disagree, he got in the network limo and went all the way to
Brell’s office to meet with him, that sounds like an interested man to me.
Brell calls Rip a ‘jock-ass’ and sends some goons after him in the limo.
The limo driver takes Rip to a parking lot where the goons
attack. Rip makes short work of them. Many action hero stars would have gone
for witty one liners in here but all Hogan needs are visceral grunts. He grabs
the limo driver for perhaps the film’s most memorable line:
Rip: What’s that smell?
Limo Driver: Do…do…dookie!
That guy must have had it bad because all the back of his
jacket is damp.
Rip is then off to an agency meeting where he meets his new
PA Samantha (Joan Severance, best known for See
No Evil, Hear No Evil and er, No
Holds Barred). Samantha is going through marketing strategies for Rip but
he thinks they should focus on his work for charidee.
Because Rip and by extension Hogan himself is all about charidee. This gets him an impromptu invite to dinner from
Samantha.
The date is in a swanky restaurant where both Samantha and
the snooty waiter think Rip is out of place. Turns out Rip is friends with the
head chef and is a regular customer. Take that snobby bitches!
Brell meanwhile visits a dirty dinge bar where he thinks he
has the answer to his ratings problem. As a mirror to the previous scene, Brell
and his two equally well-suited henchman Ordway and Unger look like fish out of
water. The patrons of this bar are tobacco spitting, gap-toothed drunkards.
There is a dwarf sitting in a cage flicking peanuts. There is an internet
rumour the dwarf is Tyrion Lannister himself, Peter Dinklage but its not. No Holds Barred was filmed in Georgia
and Dinklage was still studying in New Jersey at the time.
Amongst all this chaos of spitting, vomiting and tattooing
going on, Brell’s eye is drawn to two hicks fighting in a make-shift arena.
Brell is sadistic enough to like what he is seeing and wants to put this on the
air, because that’s what people want to see isn’t it? Two drunken hicks
fighting. Yeah, right. Oh. https://www.amazon.com/Bum-Fights-bum-Vol-Dvd/dp/B004I9HXXQ
The imaginative title for this slugfest is ‘Battle of The
Tough Guys’. I thought Vince McMahon wrote this? I thought he was supposed to
be a promoter. Enter Zeus, played by Tom ‘Tiny’ Lister (Friday, that prisoner in The
Dark Knight who throws the detonator out of the boat), a 7ft cross-eyed
monster missing half of one eye-brow. He gets immediate heat by beating up a
small waitress. He destroys all his opponents with ease, no-selling all their
punches, to become the what, ‘Ultimate Tough Guy’ I guess.
Rip is watching at home and recognises Zeus, apparently his
coach had also trained him until he killed someone but Rip and Zeus’s shared
history is not delved into any further.
Rip and Samantha go off somewhere to do I’m not exactly sure
but Rip stops the robbery of a diner by throwing food at a gunman along the
way. They check into a hotel but oh no, there’s only one bed. Mild amusement
follows. Rip breaks the bed but Samantha thinks it was all a trick. Rip doesn’t
want to stay with such a cold fish so goes to sleep in the lobby.
Good move as she had been working heel all along and was in
the employ of Brell to seduce him. But she thinks he’s a good guy now and Brell
goes full-heel and whacks her full across the face. It was the eighties. She
makes a face-turn when she confesses everything to Rip and they are now all in
love.
Zeus makes a public challenge to Rip at one of his charidee
events but he says he’s not interested. Brell has other tricks though. One is
to send a goon after Samantha and though I can’t say for certain that is what
would have happened but it looks like he attempts to rape her before Rip makes
the save on his motorcycle. He knocks the goon down and runs him into a tree,
laughing maniacally the whole time.
Then Rip’s brother Randy (Mark Pellegrino, Lost, Supernatural) goes to watch one of
Zeus’s fights. He’s caught by Brell and Zeus duffs him up. It doesn’t look like
Zeus does that much to him but its enough to put him in hospital. Which means
Hogan has to try his hand at dramatic acting, its painful to watch but it is motivation
enough for Rip to accept Zeus and Brell’s challenge to a no holds barred fight.
Crap montage of Zeus training and Rip helping his brother
back to fitness later and fight day has arrived. In a really small venue (300
at most) for the most anticipated fight ever. But Brell wants to ensure victory
for his man by having Samantha kidnapped and tells Rip to take a dive in the
tenth minute of the fight. But its okay, Samantha gets out by…walking out the
door. Worst. Guards. Ever.
In the ring, Rip and Zeus have been battering the tar out of
each other but Zeus is getting the better of it. He even tries to kill Rip with
the ring post. Zeus had been brutal in his previous fights but this was the
first time he was homicidal. Maybe if we had been given the back story, we
might know why Zeus hates Rip so much.
Rip makes his comeback however and takes the fight out into
the crowd. Brell goes crazy when it looks like Zeus could lose and starts
ripping out electrical cables to cut the television feed. Rip and Zeus continue
to brawl until Rip knocks Zeus off a balcony and through the ring. He turns his
attention to Brell, who backs into a broken monitor and is electrocuted. Rip
leaves to rapturous applause. Erm, a man has just been electrocuted? He could
be dead, you know. Not going to do anything about that? Ok then.
The end. Or not, as its’ after the film was released things
take a turn for the weird. To boost profits for the struggling film, Zeus
became involved in WWF programming and had a feud with Hogan. The motivation
being he was upset at losing to Hogan in the movie but can beat him in real-life.
In wrestling. Which is fake. Brell is even involved. So, Tom Lister plays a
character in ‘real life’ wrestling upset at losing in a fake movie. It’s meta.
It all culminated when the film came to pay-per-view and WWF
packaged it alongside a steel-cage match with Hogan and Brutus ‘the Barber’ Beefcake
against Zeus and ‘Macho King’ Randy Savage.
On a critical level, No
Holds Barred is awful. Hogan (grunts aside) is in his element during fight
scenes but whenever he needs to do any proper acting he struggles badly. It
turned a small profit at the box office but nowhere near what was hoped for. It
would be 14 years before WWF ventured into making movies again.
But the sheer ridiculousness of it all (Brell is off the
charts insane) makes it hard not to enjoy it just a little bit.
Also look out for Jesse Ventura, 'Mean' Gene Okerland, Bill Eady and Stan Hansen.
